24/7 Local Dentist Locations in Alaska

About Alaska State

Alaska lies at the extreme northwest of the North American continent, and the Alaska Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the Western Hemisphere. Because the 180th meridian passes through the state’s Aleutian Islands, Alaska’s westernmost portion is in the Eastern Hemisphere. Thus, technically, Alaska is in both hemispheres.



Alaska is bounded by the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean to the north; Canada’s Yukon territory and British Columbia province to the east; the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean to the south; the Bering Strait and the Bering Sea to the west; and the Chukchi Sea to the northwest. The capital is Juneau, which lies in the southeast, in the panhandle region.



Alaska is central to the great circle route connecting North America with Asia by sea and air and is equidistant from most of Asia and Europe. That central location has made Alaska militarily significant since the Japanese invasion of the Aleutians in 1942 during World War II. Alaska’s eastern border with Canada is about 1,538 miles (2,475 km) long, more than one-third the length of the entire U.S. boundary with Canada (3,987 miles [6,416 km]). Alaska’s western maritime boundary, separating the waters of the United States and Russia, was established in the Treaty of Cession of 1867 (which declared the transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States). The roughly 1,000-mile (1,600-km) de facto boundary runs through the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Strait to a point between Alaska’s St. Lawrence Island and Russia’s Chukotskiy (Chukchi) Peninsula and to the southwest, between Attu Island, the westernmost island of the Alaskan Aleutian chain, and the Russian Komandor Islands. The boundary leaves a patch of international waters, known as the “Doughnut Hole,” in the Bering Sea. Off the extreme western end of the state’s Seward Peninsula, Little Diomede Island, part of Alaska, lies in the Bering Strait only 2.5 miles (4 km) from Russian-owned Big Diomede Island. Both Russia and the United States have shown a tacit tolerance of unintentional airspace violations, which are common in bad weather.



The name Alaska is derived from the Aleut alaxsxa or alaxsxix̂, both meaning “mainland” or “great land.” Indeed, Alaska has an immense area and a great variety of physical characteristics. Aside from its mainland peninsula, the state includes about 15,000 square miles (38,800 square km) of fjords and inlets and about 34,000 miles (54,400 km) of indented tidal coastline. In addition, most of the continental shelf of the United States lies along Alaska’s coast. In the Alaska Range north of Anchorage is Denali (Mount McKinley), 20,310 feet (6,190 metres) high—the highest peak in North America. Nearly one-third of the state lies within the Arctic Circle, and about four-fifths of Alaska is underlain by permafrost (permanently frozen sediment and rock). Tundra—the vast treeless Arctic plains—makes up about half of the state’s surface area. The southern coast and the panhandle at sea level are fully temperate regions. In those and in the adjoining Canadian areas, however, lies the world’s largest expanse of glacial ice outside Greenland and Antarctica. Rimming the state on the south is one of Earth’s most-active earthquake belts, the circum-Pacific seismic belt. Alaska has more than 130 active volcanoes, most of which are on the Aleutian Islands and the adjacent Alaska Peninsula. The Alaska earthquake of 1964 was one of the most-powerful earthquakes recorded in the United States.



Upon attaining statehood, Alaska increased the size of the United States by nearly one-fifth. The new area included vast stretches of unexplored land and untapped resources. Its settlement and exploitation have been hindered by its distance from the rest of the country and by geographic and climatic impediments to travel and communications; Alaska continues to be the country’s last frontier. About half of the state’s inhabitants live in the Greater Anchorage–Kenai Peninsula area.



The difficulty of finding a balance between conservation and development in an enormous land has been ongoing since the beginning of the 20th century. Alaska’s residents and the state and federal governments have had to make delicate decisions on such major issues as a natural gas pipeline project, Native Alaskans’ land claims, the creation of national parks and wildlife refuges, noncommercial whaling by native peoples, and related matters. One of the major conflicts occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s between conservationists and petroleum companies over the proposed Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which now runs from the oil-rich North Slope on the Arctic Ocean to Valdez, in the south. The debate intensified following a catastrophic oil spill in 1989, when the tanker Exxon Valdez released some 250,000 barrels of oil into Prince William Sound. Moreover, beginning in the 1980s, the two sides came into conflict over whether to permit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In the early 21st century the question of drilling in the 23-million-acre (9.3-million-hectare) National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska on the Arctic coastal plain and on the continental shelves of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas also became controversial issues. Area 665,384 square miles (1,723,337 square km). Population (2010) 710,231; (2019 est.) 731,545.



Land of Alaska Relief


Alaska comprises eight distinct physiographic and environmental regions. Much of the mainland panhandle region, a narrow strip of land 25 to 50 miles (40 to 80 km) wide lying east and south of the St. Elias Mountains, is composed of the Boundary Ranges. There are several large ice fields there, and the peaks include Mount St. Elias (18,008 feet [5,489 metres]), from whose summit the Alaska-Yukon border shifts due north following the 141st meridian. The western extension of that mountain chain is the Chugach Range, a giant arc at the northernmost edge of the Gulf of Alaska. Many of the range’s remote valleys and high ridges are still unexplored, and the relief and glaciation inhibit exploitation. The coast is characterized by frequent and intense oceanic storm systems that have produced dense rain forests on the coastal mountain flanks.



The region of the south coastal archipelago and the Gulf of Alaska islands includes the Alexander Archipelago in the panhandle region, with 1,100 islands, as well as Kodiak Island, just southeast of the Alaska Peninsula, and its satellites south of Cook Inlet. Those islands are lower, less rugged, and less glaciated. All receive heavy rain and are affected by waters warmed by both the Kuroshio and Alaska currents.



Located at the northwest corner of North America, Alaska is the northernmost and westernmost state in the United States, but also has the most easterly longitude in the United States because the Aleutian Islands extend into the Eastern Hemisphere.[21] Alaska is the only non-contiguous U.S. state on continental North America; about 500 miles (800 km) of British Columbia (Canada) separates Alaska from Washington. It is technically part of the continental U.S., but is sometimes not included in colloquial use; Alaska is not part of the contiguous U.S., often called "the Lower 48". The capital city, Juneau, is situated on the mainland of the North American continent but is not connected by road to the rest of the North American highway system.



The state is bordered by Canada's Yukon and British Columbia to the east (making it the only state to border a Canadian territory); the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean to the south and southwest; the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and Chukchi Sea to the west; and the Arctic Ocean to the north. Alaska's territorial waters touch Russia's territorial waters in the Bering Strait, as the Russian Big Diomede Island and Alaskan Little Diomede Island are only 3 miles (4.8 km) apart. Alaska has a longer coastline than all the other U.S. states combined.[22]





Alaska's size compared with the 48 contiguous states (Albers equal-area conic projection)

At 663,268 square miles (1,717,856 km2) in area, Alaska is by far the largest state in the United States, and is more than twice the size of the second-largest U.S. state, Texas. Alaska is the seventh largest subnational division in the world, and if it was an independent nation would be the 16th largest country in the world, as it is larger than Iran.



With its myriad islands, Alaska has nearly 34,000 miles (55,000 km) of tidal shoreline. The Aleutian Islands chain extends west from the southern tip of the Alaska Peninsula. Many active volcanoes are found in the Aleutians and in coastal regions. Unimak Island, for example, is home to Mount Shishaldin, which is an occasionally smoldering volcano that rises to 10,000 feet (3,000 m) above the North Pacific. The chain of volcanoes extends to Mount Spurr, west of Anchorage on the mainland. Geologists have identified Alaska as part of Wrangellia, a large region consisting of multiple states and Canadian provinces in the Pacific Northwest, which is actively undergoing continent building.



One of the world's largest tides occurs in Turnagain Arm, just south of Anchorage, where tidal differences can be more than 35 feet (10.7 m).[23]



Alaska has more than three million lakes.[24] Marshlands and wetland permafrost cover 188,320 square miles (487,700 km2) (mostly in northern, western and southwest flatlands). Glacier ice covers about 28,957 square miles (75,000 km2) of Alaska.[25] The Bering Glacier is the largest glacier in North America, covering 2,008 square miles (5,200 km2) alone.[26]



Aleutian Islands

Main article: Aleutian Islands

More than 300 small volcanic islands make up this chain, which stretches more than 1,200 miles (1,900 km) into the Pacific Ocean. Some of these islands fall in the Eastern Hemisphere, but the International Date Line was drawn west of 180° to keep the whole state, and thus the entire North American continent, within the same legal day. Two of the islands, Attu and Kiska, were occupied by Japanese forces during World War II.



Land ownership

According to an October 1998 report by the United States Bureau of Land Management, approximately 65% of Alaska is owned and managed by the U.S. federal government as public lands, including a multitude of national forests, national parks, and national wildlife refuges.[32] Of these, the Bureau of Land Management manages 87 million acres (35 million hectares), or 23.8% of the state. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. It is the world's largest wildlife refuge, comprising 16 million acres (6.5 million hectares).



Of the remaining land area, the state of Alaska owns 101 million acres (41 million hectares), its entitlement under the Alaska Statehood Act. A portion of that acreage is occasionally ceded to the organized boroughs presented above, under the statutory provisions pertaining to newly formed boroughs. Smaller portions are set aside for rural subdivisions and other homesteading-related opportunities. These are not very popular due to the often remote and roadless locations. The University of Alaska, as a land grant university, also owns substantial acreage which it manages independently.



Another 44 million acres (18 million hectares) are owned by 12 regional, and scores of local, Native corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971. Regional Native corporation Doyon, Limited often promotes itself as the largest private landowner in Alaska in advertisements and other communications. Provisions of ANCSA allowing the corporations' land holdings to be sold on the open market starting in 1991 were repealed before they could take effect. Effectively, the corporations hold title (including subsurface title in many cases, a privilege denied to individual Alaskans) but cannot sell the land. Individual Native allotments can be and are sold on the open market, however.



Various private interests own the remaining land, totaling about one percent of the state. Alaska is, by a large margin, the state with the smallest percentage of private land ownership when Native corporation holdings are excluded.



Alaska Heritage Resources Survey

The Alaska Heritage Resources Survey (AHRS) is a restricted inventory of all reported historic and prehistoric sites within the U.S. state of Alaska; it is maintained by the Office of History and Archaeology. The survey's inventory of cultural resources includes objects, structures, buildings, sites, districts, and travel ways, with a general provision that they are more than fifty years old. As of 31 January 2012, more than 35,000 sites have been reported.[33]



Cities, towns and boroughs



Anchorage, Alaska's largest city



Fairbanks, Alaska's second-largest city and by a significant margin the largest city in Alaska's interior



Juneau, Alaska's third-largest city and its capital



Bethel, the largest city in the Unorganized Borough and in rural Alaska



Homer, showing (from bottom to top) the edge of downtown, its airport and the Spit



Utqiaġvik (Browerville neighborhood near Eben Hopson Middle School shown), known colloquially for many years by the nickname "Top of the World", is the northernmost city in the United States.



Cordova, built in the early 20th century to support the Kennecott Mines and the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, has persevered as a fishing community since their closure.



Main Street in Talkeetna

See also: List of cities in Alaska by population, Alaska locations by per capita income, and List of boroughs and census areas in Alaska

Alaska is not divided into counties, as most of the other U.S. states, but it is divided into boroughs.[34] Many of the more densely populated parts of the state are part of Alaska's 16 boroughs, which function somewhat similarly to counties in other states. However, unlike county-equivalents in the other 49 states, the boroughs do not cover the entire land area of the state. The area not part of any borough is referred to as the Unorganized Borough.



The Unorganized Borough has no government of its own, but the U.S. Census Bureau in cooperation with the state divided the Unorganized Borough into 11 census areas solely for the purposes of statistical analysis and presentation. A recording district is a mechanism for management of the public record in Alaska. The state is divided into 34 recording districts which are centrally administered under a state recorder. All recording districts use the same acceptance criteria, fee schedule, etc., for accepting documents into the public record.



Whereas many U.S. states use a three-tiered system of decentralization—state/county/township—most of Alaska uses only two tiers—state/borough. Owing to the low population density, most of the land is located in the Unorganized Borough. As the name implies, it has no intermediate borough government but is administered directly by the state government. In 2000, 57.71% of Alaska's area has this status, with 13.05% of the population.[35]



Anchorage merged the city government with the Greater Anchorage Area Borough in 1975 to form the Municipality of Anchorage, containing the city proper and the communities of Eagle River, Chugiak, Peters Creek, Girdwood, Bird, and Indian. Fairbanks has a separate borough (the Fairbanks North Star Borough) and municipality (the City of Fairbanks).



The state's most populous city is Anchorage, home to 278,700 people in 2006, 225,744 of whom live in the urbanized area. The richest location in Alaska by per capita income is Denali ($42,245). Yakutat City, Sitka, Juneau, and Anchorage are the four largest cities in the U.S. by area.